Burr v. Smith
| Decision Date | 10 February 1971 |
| Docket Number | Civ. No. 8769. |
| Citation | 322 F. Supp. 980 |
| Parties | Lester W. BURR et al., Plaintiffs, v. Sidney E. SMITH, individually and in his capacity as Director of the Department of Public Assistance of the State of Washington, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Western District of Washington |
John Gant, Legal Services Center, Seattle, Wash., for plaintiffs.
Slade Gorton, Atty. Gen., Walter E. White, Asst. Atty. Gen., Olympia, Wash., for defendant.
Before HAMLEY, Circuit Judge, and LINDBERG and BEEKS, District Judges.
This is an action for injunctive and declaratory relief and damages brought to correct alleged violations of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Jurisdiction of this Court is invoked under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and 28 U.S.C. § 1343. A three judge court has been requested under 28 U.S.C. §§ 2281 and 2284.
The case presents no factual issues. The parties have submitted the case to this Court on an agreed statement of facts contained in the pretrial order. The order also recites most of the relevant statutory and regulatory materials. We have tried to set forth only the most pertinent of that factual and legal information during the course of this opinion.
At the time this action was instituted, individual plaintiffs Lester Burr and Wynn Smith were persons eligible to receive unemployment compensation under the State of Washington's Employment Security Act. RCW 50.01.005 et seq. Except for this eligibility, plaintiffs would have been entitled to receive joint federal-state Aid to Families With Dependent Children (AFDC) benefits designed to assist the families of persons temporarily unemployed (AFDC-E). 42 U.S.C. § 607. Under the AFDC-E statutes and regulations, however, plaintiffs' eligibility to receive unemployment compensation automatically excluded them from participating in the AFDC-E program. This exclusion resulted in economic hardship for plaintiffs' families. The AFDC-E benefits which each family would have been entitled to receive but for the father's eligibility for unemployment compensation would have been considerably greater than either father's unemployment benefits. Plaintiff Burr's family would have been entitled to $56.94 a month more under AFDC-E than Burr was able to receive under unemployment compensation. Plaintiff Smith's family would have realized a difference of $103.10 per month.1
Plaintiffs' basic position in this suit is that their automatic exclusion from receiving AFDC-E or equivalent benefits denies them equal protection under the law. They point out that unemployed persons who receive income from other sources such as social security, workman's compensation, veterans benefits, contributions by friends, etc., are not automatically excluded from the AFDC-E program. In those situations, AFDC-E assistance is available to supplement the other income source and bring the family's income to a level equivalent to a full AFDC-E grant. This supplement is not available to plaintiffs' families. Plaintiffs eligibility to receive unemployment compensation automatically and totally excludes them from participation in the AFDC-E program.
Plaintiffs also point out that the unemployment compensation disqualification only works to the disadvantage of families headed by temporarily unemployed fathers, not to families headed by temporarily unemployed mothers. Families headed by mothers eligible for unemployment benefits receive their AFDC benefits under other AFDC programs, usually AFDC-R. 42 U.S.C. §§ 601-606. As a result, they are not affected by the unemployment disqualification rules which affect AFDC-E recipients. These families are eligible to have their unemployment benefits supplemented by an AFDC grant, much the same as recipients of workman's compensation, veteran's benefits, etc.
Plaintiffs have brought this suit on behalf of themselves, their families and all others similarly situated, contending that the state law and administrative regulation that declare them ineligible to receive AFDC-E benefits are illegal.2 They seek a judgment declaring the statute and regulation unconstitutional, and they seek a permanent injunction preventing defendant Sidney Smith, the Director of the State Department of Public Assistance, from enforcing them.3
RCW 74.12.010 is the state statute questioned here. It provides, where relevant, that the Director of the Department of Public Assistance:
shall have discretion to provide that aid to families with dependent children assistance shall be available to any child in need who has been deprived of parental support or care by reason of the unemployment of a parent or stepparent liable under this chapter for the support of such child, to the extent that matching funds are available from the federal government.
WAC 388-24-135(7) is the Department of Public Assistance regulation under attack. That regulation provides:
Plaintiffs contend that RCW 74.12.010 and WAC 388-24-135(7) result in unreasonable classifications of like situated families on the bases of (1) the family's source of income, and (2) the sex of the parent receiving unemployment compensation. Such classifications, it is urged, are unrelated to the purposes of the public assistance programs and violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
To properly understand the merits of these contentions, it is necessary to understand the effect of the state provisions and their relationship to the federal AFDC program.
The federal government's Aid to Families With Dependent Children program was established by the Social Security Act of 1935. The program is based upon a plan of federal-state cooperation. Each state administers its own AFDC program in accordance with a federally approved plan. 42 U.S.C. §§ 601-604. The federal government, in turn, carries a large share of each program's cost through a complex system of matching grants.
Until 1961 the federal government recognized only three bases of need to qualify a family to receive AFDC assistance: death of a parent; continued absence from home by a parent; mental or physical incapacity of a parent. 42 U. S.C. § 606. Families which were equally needy, but for reasons other than those listed, could not qualify for AFDC benefits. In 1961 Congress modified the AFDC program so that the term "dependent child" was expanded to include a child in need "by reason of the unemployment * * * of his father."4 As a result of this legislation, federal matching funds were made available to any state that chose to expand its AFDC assistance program to include families of employable fathers temporarily out of work. The State of Washington chose to participate in the new program, designating it AFDC-E.
In 1967 Congress cut back its AFDC-E participation. It continued a program of matching grants to assistance programs for families of temporarily unemployed fathers, but it made such grants available only if the plan of the would-be recipient state provided "for denial of aid to families with dependent children to any child * * * with respect to any week for which such child's father receives unemployment compensation * * *" 42 U.S.C. § 607(b) (2) (C) (ii).
WAC 388-24-135(7), the Department of Public Assistance regulation attacked by plaintiffs in this suit, was promulgated in direct response to the federal provision. Under the regulation's terms, children otherwise eligible for AFDC-E assistance are disqualified from receiving those benefits during any week in which their fathers receive or are eligible to receive unemployment compensation.5
RCW 74.12.010, the state statute under attack here, indirectly has the same result as the regulation. By limiting the availability of state grants to situations where "matching funds are available from the federal government," the statute effectively negates the AFDC-E program for families with fathers receiving unemployment benefits.
The basic issue in this case is whether the State has a reasonable justification for denying AFDC-E or equivalent assistance to members of plaintiffs' families while providing such assistance to the families of recipients of other sources of income and the families of mothers receiving unemployment compensation.
In the area of social welfare, a classification is not unconstitutional simply because it is imperfect. "It is enough that the State's action be rationally based and free from invidious discrimination." Dandridge v. Williams, 397 U.S. 471, 487, 90 S.Ct. 1153, 1162, 25 L.Ed.2d 491 (1970). We have examined and reviewed the entire record in this case; we are satisfied that RCW 74.12.010 and WAC 388-24-135(7) are rationally based and do not, either directly or indirectly, result in a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Washington's AFDC-E program is, by definition, that joint, federal aid assistance program contemplated by the Social Security Act of 1935, as amended. RCW 74.04.015 (1967 Supp.) By the very nature of the joint program, its scope and tenor are set, in the first instance, by the enactments of Congress. See, e. g., RCW 74.04.015 (1967 Supp.); RCW 74.04.055 (1967 Supp.); RCW 74.08.260 (1959). The source of the AFDC-E unemployment disqualification rule is the federal statute, 42 U.S.C. § 607(b) (2) (C) (ii). That statute requires, as a condition precedent to a state's participation in a matching grant program for temporarily unemployed fathers, that children of fathers eligible to receive unemployment compensation be excluded from receiving benefits from the joint federal-state program. The State has the option of choosing not to participate in the joint program at all, or...
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